Where Rauner and Pritzker stand on criminal justice issues

Jeff Kolkey Staff writer @jeffkolkey

Saturday

Nov 3, 2018 at 12:00 PMNov 5, 2018 at 1:47 PM

ROCKFORD — Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner made criminal justice reform and driving down the number of people the state prisons a centerpiece of his first term. Democratic challenger J.B. Pritzker says more must be done to stop gun violence.

Both major party gubernatorial candidates have made rehabilitation, sentencing reform, mental health, and more jobs and job skills key pieces of their criminal justice platforms. But they differ when it comes to legalizing marijuana, gun control and the death penalty.

Among his first acts as governor in 2015, Rauner formed a bipartisan commission assigned to come up with ways to reduce Illinois' prison population by 25 percent by the year 2025.

That commission came up with 27 recommendations to reduce an Illinois prison population that has exploded over the past four decades and doubled since 1987. It recommended a combination of sentencing reform and improved rehabilitative services to send fewer people to prison and reduce recidivism rates that stand at nearly 40 percent. Among the recommendations were to use county jails instead of state prisons for short stays and probation more often for nonviolent offenses, and to reduce mandatory minimum prison terms.

"If we are going to be a moral society, and going to have a safer society, we need to get at the causes of this criminal behavior," Rauner said during a recent Rockford Register Star Editorial Board meeting. "And that's what we are trying to do in our corrections system. We have converted several of our facilities already from prisons to life skills and re-entry centers, where we are dealing with job skills, vocational skills, mental health and addiction issues."

Since 2015, Illinois prison populations have declined by 13 percent, or 6,293 prisoners, to 40,872 prisoners.

Arguing that “systemic disinvestment” and Illinois' two-year budget impasse and fiscal crisis had resulted in broad cuts to social services, Pritzker says his goal is to create an economic environment and support system that prevents folks from becoming entangled in the criminal justice system in the first place.

“We have got to reduce recidivism in the state,” Pritzker said. “One of the best ways to do that is to make sure that when people come out of prison, they have a real opportunity to pursue an income — a real life for themselves — and that means making sure we have the programs in place to keep them out of prison. By the way, that saves us money.”

Both candidates emphasized job assistance for people returning from prison as important parts of their criminal justice platforms.

Rauner said he had worked to reduce the number of incarcerated juvenile offenders with the use of diversionary programs. Closed facilities have been reopened as “life skills re-entry centers” in Kewanee and Murphysboro where offenders have access to educational programs, classes for job readiness and behavioral therapy.

Rauner also has signed legislation or enacted policies that:

• Created a "red flag law,” sent to his desk with a veto-proof majority, that allows families to seek a court order allowing authorities to seize firearms from people the court finds are threat to themselves or others.

• Enacted a “cool down” law that extended a 72-hour waiting period for the purchase of handguns to all guns purchased in Illinois, and imposed stricter penalties for repeat gun traffickers.

• Won federal approval for a program that allows Illinois flexibility to invest $2 billion in Medicaid dollars on pilot programs aimed at helping patients with mental health and substance abuse disorders.

• Made it easier for reformed offenders to seek expungement of juvenile convictions or the sealing of arrest records for adults who were arrested or charged, but completed court supervision. Such records often make it more difficult to obtain jobs or housing.

Rauner vetoed a bill that would have added more oversight to gun dealers saying it would do nothing to deter gun violence.

He also added an amendatory veto in the spring to an earlier version of the 72-hour gun purchase period that would have restored the death penalty in Illinois for mass murderers and cop killers if proof were established "beyond all doubt."

The death penalty was eliminated in 2011 in Illinois after more than a decade of deliberations that included a moratorium across three gubernatorial administrations. Rauner’s amendment also would have instituted a ban on bump stocks in addition to other measures. Those amendments were never approved.

Pritzker's campaign says Rauner's death penalty advocacy was a political ruse that appeals to his core potential voters, but had no chance of becoming law. Pritzker opposes reinstitution of the death penalty, which he says was disproportionately applied to people of color and because many on death row were exonerated.

Pritzker said that as governor he would establish an office of Criminal Justice Reform and Economic Opportunity, spearheaded by Juliana Stratton, a state representative and his running mate for lieutenant governor.

Stratton said the office would tie together criminal justice reform and economic opportunity in new ways.

“Those who work in the space of criminal justice reform are keenly aware that a lack of economic opportunity often leads to involvement in the criminal justice system,” Stratton said. “When people exit the criminal justice system and there continues to be a lack of economic opportunity and other barriers to reintegrating into communities, that leads to people cycling in and out of the criminal justice system.”

Pritzker wants to:

• Treat gun violence as a public health epidemic with more funding for research and intervention; implement universal background checks for all gun sales in Illinois; and ban “assault weapons,” high-capacity magazines and bump stocks that can make semiautomatic rifles fire like automatic rifles.

Libertarian Party candidate Kash Jackson on his website says he supports the release of prisoners convicted of “victimless crimes.” He says that criminal law should always be about rehabilitation, “not retribution.”

Conservative Party candidate Sam McCann’s website says that he would “work to dismantle Rauner's sanctuary state bill and work with President Trump to secure the sovereignty of our borders.”

Jeff Kolkey: 815-987-1374; jkolkey@rrstar.com; @jeffkolkey

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